Novak Djokovic continued his impressive start to the French Open on Sunday with a straight sets win over Juan Palblo Varillas. He remains on course to meat Carlos Alcaraz in the semi-finals, after the Spaniard reached his fourth Grand Slam quarter-final by beating Lorenzo Musetti.
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova also reached the last eight of the women’s singles despite missing a year of tennis through injury. Here, Mail Sport’s LEWIS STEELE rounds up some of the big stories from Paris.
Murray was due to play his second round of the mixed doubles alongside American partner Taylor Townsend but felt terrible after eating at a Parisian fish restaurant and pulled out before the start of play.
Stan Sport is the only place to watch all the action from Roland-Garros with every match streaming ad-free, live and on demand. Jamie Murray’s French Open was over when he woke upon Sunday suffering a nasty bout of food poisoning.
Women’s No 3 seed, Jessica Pegula, also had her tournament wrecked for a similar reason. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova is ranked world No 333 after missing a year of tennis with a knee injury but is continuing a fairytale in Paris to reach an eighth career Grand Slam quarter-final.
‘I don’t think they will give me one. But actually, you’re right thank you I will ask and let you know in the next press conference.’ Novak DJjokovic has dropped just one set in Grand Slams this year, to French qualifier Enzo Couacaud in Australia, but his quarter-final opponent here may give him a better test.
She is unable to play Wimbledon due to her ranking but was asked if she will try for a wildcard. ‘Are you serious? After everything last year?’ she replied, noting the ban on Russians and Belarusians last year.
Carlos Alcaraz is into his fourth Grand Slam quarter-final after making short work of Lorenzo Musetti on Sunday. Since 2000, only two male players have made more before turning 21 Rafa Nadal (six) and Novak Djokovic (five).
Karen Khachanov is into the last eight of a Slam for the fifth time with three of them coming in the last three majors and the Russian is a keen chess player. Asked about his moves ahead of the meeting with the grand master, Khachanov said: ‘I’m not going to tell you my chess moves because you will tell him! There are a lot of matches in Roland Garros, so a lot of checkmates are needed.’
